The Ties That Bind
by Lily Itriwi
Summary: Tony's friends are all employees.


Tony's friends are all his employees.

Not when he found them, of course. But as soon as he realised that here was a person who was brilliant and beautiful and far, far too good for him he tied them to him as strongly as he could, through obligation and duty and dependency and any damn thing he could think of to make sure they could never, ever leave him.

In his more self reflective moments Tony knew this about himself, and perhaps it was due to the childhood of yearning for attention from his brilliant father and his beautiful mother, whose attention had always been fixed on their own goals, their own ambitions. Care and attention had been given to Tony only by the family retainers, those whose job it was to provide it. So Tony made sure those he needed in his life had ambitions that could only be achieved through him, so they would always need him in return. But generally Tony was not self reflective and did his best to forget such thoughts when they occurred; he was driven by instinct, the voice of the neglected child a mere flicker in the back of his head amongst the irrepressible flow of ideas and impulses and _now_.

Rhodey had been the first, of course. Tony had never been sure why the older man, with gravitas even so young, had bothered with dragging a surly, sarcastic teenage genius out of the computer labs or an angsting, drunken and even more sarcastic teenage troublemaker out of frat parties, dusting him off, dressing him down and putting him to bed. And coming back in the morning. With coffee.

So as soon as he could, he set about making their relationship more secure. And as military liaison to the biggest US defence contractor, Rhodey rose fast in the military, but he was only as successful as his relationship to Tony was – Rhodey couldn't leave him, not without sabotaging everything he had worked for and believed in. And that was enough, for Tony to understand their relationship and know that it would always be there.

Pepper was even easier. Captivated not so much by her stunning looks as her stunning competence, he had snaffled her from accounts with a ridiculous raise and the promise of an outlet for her astounding capabilities. But Tony knew it wasn't enough, not really, to keep her forever, and so he saw her soft heart beneath the armour of competence and showed her that he needed her. He kept back the deep yearning ache he hid even from himself, though, and showed it through his social gaffes and self-neglect, and Pepper bustled about, covering for his weaknesses, smoothing over ruffled feathers, bullying him into doing things that were good for him. She saw enough that she saw he couldn't function without her, and Tony knew she wouldn't leave him helpless.

And then the Avengers had happened and suddenly they were important and not just irritating and in the aftermath of the Chitauri they had known that something had changed but weren't sure what they were going to do about it. And Tony could see them slowly drifting back into their old lives and habits and away from him and had realised that that was unacceptable.

So he took them in and made them toys. He made them watch movies and order takeout and get drunk together, and together they fought monsters. But it wasn't enough, not to keep people with actual superpowers from leaving him.

So he offered Bruce a ridiculous salary and even more ridiculous resources and badgered him until Bruce chuckled and offered an easy acquiescence and he didn't quite realise it wasn't the science that Bruce couldn't live without but the acceptance.

Thor was harder, because how do you contain a demi-god? So he thought, and offered Jane Foster and her assistant his resources and his cutting edge research, and snaffled Erik Selvig and half his team for his research department while he was at it, and settled for Thor always coming back.

The SHIELD agents are even more tricky, because although Tony has hacked their files and has read everything he can get his hands on, he doesn't know them. He doesn't know them but he needs them, so Tony buys the Avengers independence from SHIELD, he buys their loyalty, and then they're Clint and Natasha and he still doesn't always know them, but he knows where they'll be in battle and that they'll have his back, he knows that Clint loves Spaghetti Westerns and snickerdoodles, and Natasha reads Terry Pratchett novels when it's raining, because her usual Russian literature is too depressing, and he knows they don't really have anywhere else to go.

And then there's Steve, who wears every emotion on his face and should be so easy to understand, but Tony just doesn't. He never knows when an offhand comment is going to get a sigh, exasperated but fond, or a hurt expression and a closed door for the next 36 hours. Maybe there's just an inherent disconnect between an innovative futurist always developing the next big thing and a chivalrous old-fashioned crusader yearning for the past that moved on without him. So he tries to give him the past, fills Steve's room with nostalgia and watches old movies with him and Steve seems touched at first, but as the days go by and the Americana builds up, the fond exasperation grows in Steve's voice like he's saying, "I don't need the past from you, Tony." So Tony shows him the future instead, and really this is much better, all this progress, who wouldn't want this? Steve gets the latest Stark phone and whirlwind tours of the internet and of New-New York, and Steve is excited and fascinated until one day when he's just saddened. And Tony is at a loss, so he prods and pokes at Steve on their quiet days, information gathering, until he has his epiphany. Steve wants a purpose. Which, by the way, is ridiculous, because saving the world is surely enough of a purpose for anyone, except somehow that's Captain America's purpose and in between saving the world Steve's just been kind of left without one.

Thinking of the sketch books Steve doodled in when nothing was trying to eat New York City, Tony introduced him around to his design teams, graphic artists, marketing people and though Steve was friendly as always and got some ideas for his sketching, Tony could tell it was the wrong place, the wrong people, the wrong fit.

So when a few weeks later, when Tony peeled his face up from the paperwork he'd crashed out on after sleep-deprived engineering, and saw the light in Steve's eyes, distracted from his mission of caffeine-providing mercy, as he leafed through the pages and pages on the Maria Stark Foundation, on the funding for the reconstruction for New York and the new wing for the children's hospital and the community little league in Brooklyn, the relief and satisfaction was almost overwhelming. Finally, Steve needed him, and that would be enough.


End file.
